U. S.
needs to invest in science, engineering

While driving to Maryland
to visit our daughter and family over Thanksgiving, my wife and I listened to
Thomas L. Friedman’s audio book, The World is Flat. It
was a fascinating and easy to follow explanation of what is happening in the
world of globalization.

Two of the points I learned are
that globalization is here to stay and that it is not all bad. We have some
adjustments to make in this country, but basically all will work for the better
of everyone in the world, Friedman said.
This book inspired this column.

I suspect that everyone over the
age of 55 remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing on
November 22, 1963 – the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I was
glued to the TV that mournful Thanksgiving weekend.

Kennedy was
elected by the smallest margin of popular votes up to that time, so he was not
a universally acclaimed leader. His death changed that.What I personally remember about Kennedy was his charismatic style
and world view that encompassed the whole world, not just the narrow selfish interests
of individuals and our country, which is what seems to prevail today.

In his
inaugural address, Kennedychallenged us with, “Ask not what your country can do for you,
but what you can do for your country.” While in Berlin he said proudly Ich
bin ein Berliner, for which there was tumultuous
applause.

He
initiated the Peace Corps as a way to help people around the world without
politicizing that help. I know many who served in the Peace Corps in thos early days. I even considered joining the Peace Corps
myself. The program is still going strong with children of Peace Corps
volunteers entering the Corps today.

One
particular challenge that Kennedy faced was in the New Frontier – space. In
1959 before he became president, Russia announced the launching of
Sputnik, the first orbital satellite. It wasn’t long after that Your Gagarin
was the first person in space.

President
Kennedy gave us a clear vision of where we should go in our space program by
declaring boldly that we will not only have satellites in space and our own
astronauts, but we will land a man on the moon before the end of thedecade. And so we
did.

Today’s Challenge

hee challengewe have today has been with us for over
thirty years – dependence on oil as our main energy resource. Coupled with that
is the dependence on foreign oil.There is a silent crisis underlying
this challenge. That crisis is the decline in interest in science and
engineering. The space initiative created many doctoral level scientists and
engineers but they are now nearing retirement or have retired. The future of
replacement looks bleak.

The crisis
shows up in the decliningtest scores and interest in science in elementary and high
school. While fourth graders are showing respectable results, these test scores
gradually get worse in eighth grade and twelfth grade.

The numbers
of students enrolling in college science and engineering doctoral programs
continues to decline from the highest in the world thirty years ago. Many of
these positions are being filled by foreign students, but these have diminished
since 9/11 because of new rrestrictions imposed by
the Department of Homeland Security. As China
and India
continue to develop their own need for doctoral level scientists and engineers,
more and more of these students will stay in their own country.

It takes
fifteen years to develop a child in elementary school into a scientist or
engineer at the doctoral level. Fifteen years from now we will be experiencing
an acute shortage if we don’t act now.

The 2004 federal budget showed an overall increase in
spending, but it reduced the spending for the National Science Foundation. We
need to increase substantially that allocation rather than lower it in order to
support research and development.

We need a
leader who will be bold and strong in declaring that we will be energy
independent within ten years. This meansutilizing what we now have more
efficiently and developing energy alternatives. We don’t know what those
alternatives will be without scientists and engineers with the knowledge and
creative freedom to discover them.This vision
includes promoting science and engineering careers from early elementary school
onward. It means allocating the dollars to get the job done. it
means moving our energy polcies out of secrecy and
into the open.